The painting is often described as the most famous in the world. Official statistics show that in 2010 8.5 million people visited the Louvre, where the Mona Lisa is on display. Of these 7 million had gone there only to see the Mona Lisa. (In 2009 7.8 million people had visited the Louvre which has 180 guards and they go on strike ever so often – for more pay and better working conditions.)Earlier this year the painting was in the news because Signor Silvano Vincenti, who heads of a team of scientists and historians of Italy’s National Committee for Culture and Heritage, claimed that the woman who sat for Leonardo da Vinci was not Lisa Gherandini. It was not even a woman. It was Leonardo’s lover: Salai (Little Devil) as Leonardo called him. The young cross-dresser’s real name was Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Orena (right). (I wrote about it here.) Signor Silvano Vincenti upset the the Louvre with that allegation, and the signor has done so yet again–now he wants the Louvre to loan him the Mona Lisa (he calls it La Gioconda) to be exhibited in Florence in 2013.
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We would like to introduce you to our documentary, THE MISSING PIECE:THE TRUTH ABOUT THE MAN WHO STOLE THE MONA LISA. Visit our website http://www.monalisamissing.com for all of the details about the greatest little known art theft in history and the TRUE story about Vincenzo Peruggia, the man who stole her. Our film will be released to mark and make history on August 21, 2011, the 100th anniversary of this most unthinkable event. THE MISSING PIECE will set the record straight and for the first time give an account of the theft as it is documented in the many primary source materials housed in the French and Italian National Archives. It also features Vincenzo Peruggia’s daughter, Celestina Peruggia ( who passed away in March 2011) who give her final interview about the father she never knew and a mandate to director, Joe Medeiros, to find the real motivation behind her father’s act and to bring to the world the true and verifiable facts about his life.